Project by

Mark Boyle has lived completely without money for two and a half years, an experience which formed the basis for his first two books, The Moneyless Man and The Moneyless Manifesto. He is currently finishing a third book, titled Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, out Sept 2015.
He is a trustee of a global community sharing project called Streetbank, and has set up a permaculture and gift-based small-holding in Ireland called An Teach Saor. He holds a degree in Business and for most of his professional career was involved in the management of organic food companies.
He gives talks internationally (but doesn’t fly which makes it difficult for him to go very far very often!) and writes intermittently for various international newspapers and magazines, such as the Guardian and Permaculture magazine.

New stretch target

Firstly, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed so far! We are thrilled to know that we can now make The Happy Pig a reality this summer! We hope to see many of you here for our big launch weekend!The generosity of you wonderful people is life-affirming, and it shows no signs of abatting! So we would like to share what we plan to do with all these extra donations:

Make The Happy Pig more beautiful and comfortable inside than our previous budget would have allowed - this makes us very happy as we want it to be as beautiful as we can afford to make it!

Radiators in both the dorm room and the teacher's bedroom, which we decided not to factor into the original budget.

It gives us a buffer in case of unforeseen costs - very handy considering that building works always go over budget!

Putting on an even better launch party than we had already planned!

A small fund to cover future maintenance costs of the building.

And remember: everyone who continues to support our campaign can still avail of all the exciting rewards to your right too!

So we had a thought: why not create a free community space -- out of local, natural and recycled materials -- where people from all backgrounds (inc. yourself!) could meet, attend free workshops & courses, eat & drink, dance & perform music, play table tennis & pool, relax & take some time out, share skills & stories, all without a single penny changing hands.

There was only one problem - we had no money to do so, only our insuppressible enthusiasm, a lot of imagination and an old pig shed!

The story so far...

That was when you inspiring bunch of crowdfunders showed up. After one of our founders, Mark Boyle, spent a week with Crowdfunder's MD Phil Geraghty in Schumacher College, we decided to let The Happy Pig be a place where, if it were meant to be, it would be created by the people, for the people. If people didn't share our passion for creating free spaces, then its time had not yet come. But if they got as excited about it as we were, together we could create something that would serve people and planet for decades to come.

The response was one that we could not have imagined!

Having been featured in everything from The Sunday Times, the Guardian and RTÉ News to Permaculture magazine and Positive News, not only did we successfully raise the funds required to build The Happy Pig -- through the generosity of those who really got behind our campaign -- we were invaded by an army of volunteers who came here to learn how to create inexpensive buildings from local, natural materials.

Thanks to our supporters, crowdfunding has enabled us, thus far, to build the structure of The Happy Pig which, as you can see in the video above, is a total transformation of the old pig shed. And all for 11% of the cost of a conventional build!

What will the funding go towards?

This time, funds will go towards the interiors -- flooring and insulation, woodburner and boiler, plumbing, internal doors, bunk beds, fitting the kitchen and bar, the dorm room, the teacher's bedroom and the bathroom. The time we spend on it is a labour of love and given freely (on top of 6 months of our time, we've also donated about £3,000 ourselves so far), so every penny you donate goes towards the build.

Once we have finished the interiors -- which we cautiously expect to be early autumn -- we have very exciting plans for the place. We want The Happy Pig, within the context of the whole project here, to become a place where people can freely explore Wild food, forest gardening, gift economics, art, free education, home-brewing, music and language, philosophy, bee-keeping, circus shenanigans, herbalism, perennials, natural building, no-dig annual vegetable production, writing, coppicing, storytelling, bushcraft, off-grid living and much more. We want to bring some of the world's best teachers, thinkers and speakers here, so that everyone can get involved in the ecological, social, commmunity and spiritual issues concerning us. Based on a permaculture demonstration site, visitors can also discover how they can "close the loop" in everything they do, and help us explore how we can merge all of this into a more holistic and healthier culture.

We need YOU in order to make this happen.

So if this idea excites you, or inspires you to want to support it, we greatly appreciate all contributions towards it, however small or big.And remember: as well as playing a huge role in making this project happen, and the fact you'll be able to come and visit here and attend events (or just a little break) entirely for free once it's done, we have many fantastic new rewards on the right to choose from!

Get £50 reward

A tour of, and night at, An Teach Saor and The Happy Pig. PLUS a native tree planted on our permaculture demonstration site.

13 backers so far

Get £75 reward

An afternoon with Mark Boyle (The Moneyless Man) in a pub/café in London, PLUS a personalised copy of his forthcoming book (Sept 2015), Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi.

0 backers so far

Get £75 reward

A workshop in hula-hooping, and how to make your own hoop (taking home your own hoop), by our finest hooper Kirsty Alston. PLUS a tour of, and night at, An Teach Saor and The Happy Pig, and a native tree planted.

0 backers so far

Get £100 reward

A personalised copy of two of Mark's books, The Moneyless Man and Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, PLUS a tour of, and night at, An Teach Saor and The Happy Pig, and a native tree planted.

Get £110 reward

Get £150 reward

A one-day writing workshop with Man Booker Prize longlisted author Paul Kingsnorth. PLUS three nights at An Teach Saor, and The Happy Pig, with Fergus, Mark and others. Date tbc.

2 backers so far

Get £150 reward

An invite to a feast at The Happy Pig, as part of our launch weekend! PLUS three nights at An Teach Saor, and The Happy Pig, with Paul Kingsnorth, Mark Boyle, Fergus the Forager and others. Date tbc.

6 backers so far

Get £200 reward

A one-day workshop on how to find and make wild & natural dyes, pigments for paint, and wild-crafted paint brushes, with the UK's foremost Wild food expert Fergus the Forager! PLUS three nights at An Teach Saor, and The Happy Pig, with Fergus, Mark and others. Date tbc.

1 backer so far

Get £200 reward

A one-day Acrobalance workshop, PLUS an invite to our launch weekend inc. 3 days and nights at The Happy Pig here at An Teach Saor.

3 backers so far

Get £250 reward

A weekend for you, and up to 10 friends, at The Happy Pig and An Teach Saor, located in the wilds of Galway, with full use of the kitchen, bar and fire-hut.

1 backer so far

Get £275 reward

A weekend yoga retreat for you, and up to 8 friends, in rural Ireland (county Wexford). See main description for website details.

0 backers so far

Get £300 reward

A week for up to 6 people at The Happy Pig and An Teach Saor, located in the wilds of Galway, with full use of the kitchen, bar and fire-hut.

1 backer so far

Get £500 reward

A full weekend of permaculture and gift economics for you and up to five friends at An Teach Saor and The Happy Pig, along with Mark Boyle (The Moneyless Man), Paul Kingsnorth, Fergus Drennan and others, inc. the official launch party of The Happy Pig! Date tbc.

1 backer so far

Get £500 reward

A week for up to 10 people at The Happy Pig and An Teach Saor, located in the wilds of Galway, with full use of the kitchen, bar and fire-hut.

0 backers so far

Get £750 reward

Ask co-founder Mark Boyle to do anything you want!

0 backers so far

Get £1,000 reward

You name your reward! Any of the above, PLUS Mark will do anything you want - within reason!

1 backer so far

Get £1,000 reward

All of the courses/weekends above, with Mark Boyle (The Moneyless Man), Paul Kingsnorth and Fergus the Forager, along with a weekend in The Happy Pig for you and up to eight of your friends. PLUS personalised copies of three of Mark's books and a native tree planted!